The Penny Heart (46 page)

My dear friend, as you once called me in happier days, I am dismal without you. Yet you must put your own safety first and not be thinking of me. Dr Sampson has asked me your whereabouts, and I have told him you have gone abroad for your health, having never quite recovered from your accident last year. I believe the doctor is not beyond suspicion himself, for he and a certain lady may well be friends too; she is that free with her favours.

Enough, I have put it about that you are too poorly to come home from foreign parts and I have no notion when you might return. As for me, mistress, I do not know how much longer I can stay here. You know full well how the master’s treatment of you made my blood boil. I should heartily like to be free of nursing him, for it does disgust me extremely. And I must tell you there have been no wages forthcoming here since last you paid me, but that is no concern of yours now.

I have taken this opportunity to enclose a bottle of the tonic I made up for you, thinking you may need it after all the shocks you have suffered. That is all my news, mistress, and if you should care to follow my advice, do keep your true name hidden and stay away from these parts, for the sake of your life. Forget your husband, as I wish I might soon enough. I heartily wish you all the blessings you deserve for the future.

Your affectionate friend and ally,

Peg Blissett

I read and re-read that letter a score of times. So Michael lived after all. I thanked the Almighty he had been spared, and also, I admit, that I was not a murderess and lived secure and secret at Glasshouse Street. Mostly, however, I was left with the clear knowledge of how stupid I had been to believe myself in love with a man who wished my utter ruin. If I stayed well away from Delafosse, I told myself, I would be safe.

I wrote a hasty note back to Peg, relieving her of any obligation to nurse Michael, and sending a guinea piece in a twist of paper, as recompense for all her trouble. I wished her joy of the future and thanked her heartily for spreading the tale of my moving abroad. But as for Peg’s remedy, I threw it away. I had no wish to return to day-time naps and a muddled head. Fresh air and company, I decided, were better remedies than any bottle.

Each morning I walked, and each afternoon I painted and read. When he was free of his work, the captain would accompany me on my jaunts; for as soon as I understood that his gallantry was of the harmless, old-fashioned style, I enjoyed his gentle flirtation. He introduced me to the pleasures of promenading along the pretty gravel walks of St James’s Park; and treated me to a daily cup of curds, ‘for your good health, madam’, at the Milk Stall, where stood a couple of lazily grazing cows.

One February day as we loitered there at our healthful repast, a news-crier ran towards us, followed by a chattering throng. Halting, the crier called his news to gasps of astonishment: the King of France had been murdered by his own people, on that infernal machine, the guillotine. Now the cut-throats of France had declared war on Britain and all of Europe besides. Within days, red-coated militia had been quartered in the city parks, undisciplined lads for the most part. The captain vastly regretted he could not join them, for age allowed him to attack the French only with caustic words.

Amidst these commotions I attended to my small affairs. My new friend showed me where I might buy second-hand clothes, and was made to stand a long while on duty as I rooted amongst the baskets and trestles. With my limited purse I settled on a black woollen mourning gown, not unlike the old-fashioned one I had worn to mourn my mother. I felt this garb to be the surest disguise against troublesome questions, yet I cannot say it fooled the captain. ‘Was it a hasty sort of bereavement?’ he asked me one day as we strolled to Golden Square. ‘After that riding accident – at a stile was it, or another time, a turnpike?’ His bright eyes shone as he teased me about my differing accounts of my husband’s death.

‘I’m afraid it was certainly very hasty,’ I confessed with a conspiratorial smile.

I discovered the great sights of our capital, exploring that new institution called the British Museum, where glass cases contain a great many marvels, collected by Englishmen from obscure parts of the world. There I sketched mummified corpses of Egypt, so ancient that those pharaohs lived long before Christ himself. Soon after, I discovered the famed Royal Academy, where I studied the new style in portraits painted with freer, bolder brushstrokes.

Yet if the thick ice of the great shock I had experienced was melting, I cannot claim the detritus of the past was so easily washed away. As I walked I often started at the sight of John Francis across the way or in a passing carriage, only to look a second time and see it was quite another man. On my first arrival I had fancied, like a country bumpkin, that I would find him in the streets as easily as two friends might meet in a small town like Greaves. As the months passed, I began to comprehend the immensity of the capital: spreading parish after parish, a view of church spires and smoking chimneys as far as every distant horizon. John Francis could be anywhere in the city, I told myself, or in Bristol or even America.

Nevertheless, day by day, I eased myself of the drug that my fascination with Michael had been – the nightshade in my veins that had kept me transfixed and insensible. By May-time I breathed in the warm spring air and let unfamiliar sights settle restfully on my eyes. I began to sketch scenes of springtime in the city parks, of greenery and unfurling leaves and new shoots rising in the flowerbeds.

The captain was, indeed, as sharp as a razor. One day, on our usual walk to St James’s Park we paused to watch a man taking bets and putting on a lively show using a board, three thimbles and a pea. His trick was to place the pea under one of the thimbles, shuffle them about and invite bets as to which thimble hid the pea. One of the crowd wagered sixpence, then another ninepence. The shuffler goaded him, and soon another fellow made a bet of a whole crown. ‘Done!’ shouted the shuffler; and lifted his middle thimble. Lo, the shuffler’s face was aghast – for the challenger had won his crown. After some laughter at the thimble-man’s folly, he offered the crowd a second wager, admitting that his memory was bad, as he had been up all night. He gave us another display of his thimble-shuffling skills, and this time half-a-dozen men vied to lay even larger bets. The highest bidder was a top-hatted gentleman, who boasted that his eye had never left the thimble, and he was confident of making an easy ten bob.

‘He may as well hand over his purse and save his time,’ muttered the captain in my ear.

I raised my brows; but the captain’s prediction came true – when the chosen thimble was raised, the pea had astonishingly disappeared, and moved beneath another. Thereafter all the games were won by the shuffler, or the thimble-rigger, as the captain called him.

‘How did you know the outcome?’ I asked on our way home.

‘It’s a trick as old as time. Seen it in Egypt, seen it in India.’

‘But how is it done? How does the shuffler always place the pea beneath a thimble no one bets on?’

‘Ha, those fellows are as good as conjurors. The trickster’s way is to make you see something that was never even there. Think, Mrs Frankland, how can the thimble-rigger be sure to win?’

‘By knowing exactly which thimble the pea is under?’

He laughed. ‘So what is to stop someone else guessing the right thimble? The odds are only one in three. Come – it’s the same method for any conjurer or sharper.’

‘I truly don’t know. I am poor at guessing.’

‘By the time the bets are laid,’ he whispered. ‘All the thimbles are empty.’

‘What? But I have seen the pea go under the thimble!’

‘You’ve seen it go under – but he flicks it out at the back and palms it. Then later, he flicks it back under while you are distracted. It is all done by tricking your eye to look the wrong way.’

‘But that must take so much practice.’

‘And that is the second way these folk confound the public. You, an honest personage, think it too much trouble to learn such flash-handedness. But look at the thimble-rigger again. How much has he taken this hour? Maybe two pounds already – save for the cut he must give the fellow who won a crown, who is, of course, his accomplice. If he chooses a different place for his table every day, he might earn more than ten pounds a week. So it is worth those hours of practice with the flash-hand technique, wouldn’t you say?’

Soon afterwards, the captain was called upon to spend long hours at the Justices’ office at Lichfield Street. ‘Perhaps you are a criminal on bail?’ I teased.

‘Perhaps I am. Either that, or a habitual seducer of beautiful young widows.’

‘But what is it you do for the Justices? Tell me.’

With some pride, he described their attempts to improve the Watch system and set up an organised band of thief-takers. ‘I am sadly too old to be a member of that band of head-breakers,’ he quipped. ‘For I should enjoy nothing more than to clap up a few of these wicked felons. I am merely a watcher. When the thief-takers want to keep an eye on a fellow – or a woman, of course – they do not want their own visages to be remarked upon. So I sit in a tavern all day, or follow a fellow about the docks. In this alone my white hair is an advantage, Mrs Frankland, for with a few different jackets and caps I might pass for any ancient codger.’

‘It sounds dangerous work,’ I said – though I was, in fact, wondering how dangerous it was for me to befriend such an upholder of the law.

‘It is true that a number of the thief-takers have been injured or even snuffed out – but I believe that’s a fair price to pay for saving so many citizens from the scourge of crime.’

Though at last I grew easier in my mind at Glasshouse Street, my body then chose to betray worrying symptoms. Had I ingested a few grains of Michael’s ratsbane after all? In the confusion of that evening, who was to say that both glasses might not have been tainted? Or had Michael been slowly poisoning me since I first met him? The fact was that, since December, both my appetite and bodily courses had been in great disorder. Then, in June of that year, I could no longer ignore the swelling of a tumour. Secretly, I found out the address of a respected doctor. I had little hope of surviving such an illness, and for the first time considered writing to Mr Tully to set my affairs in order. I was absolutely decided; if I should die, Michael must not inherit a penny from me.

Dr Dalrymple was a medical man of the grand type, in a red coat and cauliflower wig. But his manner was kindly enough as he bade me lay down while he prodded the swelling. Then, to my consternation, he smiled and said, ‘Well, Mrs Frankland, it is indeed a tumour of the benevolent type. And I heartily predict you will be delivered of it within a month or two at most.’ Astonished, I let my fingers creep down to the taut dome of flesh and experienced a queasy sense of the miraculous.

‘You are happy with the diagnosis?’

‘I am, sir. Only rather confounded by the news.’

All I could think was what a terrible irony it would be for me to bear Michael’s child. And also, of course, how foolish I had been. I was still, it seemed, quite stupefied by life, not to have understood the clearest of natural signs.

27

London

Summer 1793

~ A Savoury and Nourishing Food at a Cheap Rate ~

Take half a pound or what you have of clean meat, two ounces of rice, a turnip, potato and onion, and mix also parsley and thyme and a proper quantity of pepper and salt. Let it boil an hour or till done, with water and let it be frequently stirred. This dish is very nourishing and well tasting at a very small cost.

A worthy receipt devised by Mrs Emma Macdonald to feed the poor in times of need

The news of the baby changed everything. Michael, however despicable, was my child’s father, and I could not allow him to be rid of me, and of his child, so easily. As for his marrying Miss Claybourn, I would see him imprisoned for bigamy if she ever wore that Venice lace. But before I told him about the child, I decided to be more cautious than in the past. Whenever I turned over the tangled events at Delafosse, I always found awkward little knots of confusion. Chiefly, I wanted to know whether Michael was capable of the cruelty Peg accused him of; and if he truly had sent her to the gallows for such a slight crime. Reluctantly, I decided to take the captain into my confidence. We were alone in the downstairs parlour, and the captain was enjoying his evening dram and tobacco by the fire.